The Phantom's Plea
by Tracy Diane Miller
Summary: This very short story was inspired by "Where or When."


The Phantom's Plea  
  
Summary: This very short story was inspired by "Where or When."  
  
Disclaimer: Early Edition characters belong to whoever created them. No copyright infringement intended. No profit is being made.  
  
Author: Tracy Diane Miller E-mail address: tdmiller82@hotmail.com  
  
The Phantom's Plea  
  
As he sat in that wheelchair with his only companions his fear and the darkness, his heart pounded so forcefully that it offered a loud concerto inside of his head. Maybe it wasn't Vivaldi Concerto in E major, but the vibrations mingled hauntingly with his fear. His knuckles grew white from the intensity at which he clutched the bat. He swallowed hard. His eyes were glued to the diaphanous glass pane on the loft door and to the shadowy figure that he anticipated approaching possibly with murderous intentions.  
  
He held the bat tightly. In high school he had made varsity baseball with a swing that was so legendary that his coach had predicted that he was destined for a career in the majors. That career never came. Instead, he spent several dismal years as a stockbroker before the advent of a mysterious futuristic newspaper christened him as a hero. Admittedly, he still possessed imperfections as he pursued a "career" as a hero, but like any learning curve, he had, he believed, gotten better with effectuating heroics over the years. Because of The Paper he had grown accustomed to being a nameless phantom that snatched an unassuming victim from the jaws of disaster or death. As sloppy as he was at being a hero sometimes, he had gotten used to this role. What he wasn't used to was being a victim.  
  
And at this moment, he was so scared.  
  
Perspiration glistened from his brow. The bat also grew moist from his fear-induced sweat. But he kept his eyes trained on the door and his ears alert to the deliberate sound of uninvited footsteps. What if this intruder brandished a gun? Now was not the time to ponder worst case scenarios he mentally scolded himself. His immobility served to heighten his vulnerability. He knew that he sat there in that wheelchair easy prey to a criminal's mens rea. Fate had cast him as a real life "Rear Window" character. Yet, his survival instincts had been whetted by his fear.  
  
Footsteps, he could hear them, even pass the concerto, even pass his latent regret that his curiosity had plunged him into this predicament.  
  
Then his emotions came crashing towards him like a tidal wave as the door opened and the menace entered in the darkness.  
  
The Paper had led him to this moment. It always did.  
  
It all began when a story in The Paper revealed that a little girl named Justine would be critically injured in a fall from a scaffolding. Justine had climbed the scaffolding on a school yard dare. As he climbed that scaffolding to rescue Justine, he had silently cursed the idiocy of peer pressure and the need for acceptance that would drown common sense in an effort to gain approval from others. He called out to her. He was successful at calming her with soothing words as he helped her to safety. But his rescue efforts weren't over. He still needed to save Harriet, the ordinary looking teddy bear perilously close to falling. Justine told him that she had Harriet ever since she was a kid. A hero's work is never done.  
  
Like the valiant and good-hearted soul that he was, he climbed further out onto the scaffolding and saved the teddy bear. As he made his way towards safety, he turned around and saw a light, then a beautiful woman staring at him. Their eyes met. He couldn't explain it, but there was something about her that felt comfortably familiar. Her eyes had a power over him so much of a power that his body belatedly reacted to the sound of the cracking scaffolding. Her face was the last thing that he saw as he tumbled off of the scaffolding to the ground below.  
  
He lay there on the ground as an excruciating pain shot through his body. He didn't know how long he was on the ground before a construction worker appeared and asked him what he was doing there. The pain heightened his sarcasm, but he resisted the urge to tell the guy that he was sunbathing. Moments later, an ambulance arrived and he was transported to Columbia General Hospital where doctors confirmed the grim diagnosis that he had sustained a broken leg.  
  
His friends helped him with his recuperation. Chuck wasn't exactly Florence Nightingale and his friend's ability in negotiating that wheelchair was questionable at best, but what really grated him was that Chuck didn't believe him when he revealed about the mysterious woman on the scaffolding. Chuck acted as if he was suffering from delusions.  
  
But the Phantom he saw on the scaffolding wouldn't leave him alone. She invaded his dreams. He couldn't escape from her. He saw those eyes in his subconscious. And there was something more. He felt her cheek warm against his own cheek as they swayed to music, two hearts and two souls lovingly synchronized. What did she want from him? What was she trying to tell him?  
  
Some things that happen for the first time seem to be happening again.  
  
He was shocked when he realized that the new waitress, Anne, bore an eerie resemblance to the phantom of his dreams. And things became even more bizarre when Cat delivered the Sun-Times, but not the typical early edition. This telling edition was much earlier, over fifty years earlier. The shocking headline contained a story about Daria, a USO entertainer who was shot to death at McGinty's in 1944. Daria was a dead ringer for Anne.  
  
Some things that happen for the first time seem to be happening again.  
  
In a twist of Fate, he discovered that Anne was Daria's granddaughter and that The Paper also pegged her to die in the same manner as her grandmother. After hunting dusty boxes for clues, he found an old photograph of Daria and a man in the background of the shot. His junior detective skills surmised that Lou was the man. He connected the dots. Lou had murdered Daria and all these years he believed that he had escaped justice until Anne showed up as a tenant in his building. Lou had to murder Anne to conceal his half a century ago crime.  
  
The menace came towards him. It was Lou. He clutched the bat tighter. Bravely, he told Lou that he knew that the man had murdered Daria and had planned to kill Anne. What he hadn't planned on was Lou's revelation. Lou hadn't murdered Daria. Lou loved Daria and had intended to end his tumultuous three-year marriage to strong-willed Norma to marry Daria and raise Daria's young daughter as his own. But Norma was aware of his and Daria's clandestine meetings at McGinty's. One night Norma took his gun, came over to McGinty's, and shot and killed Daria. He was going to turn Norma into the authorities but discovered that Norma was three months pregnant with his child. How could he turn in the mother of his child?  
  
Some things that happen for the first time seem to be happening again.  
  
In the end, The Paper prevented history from repeating itself. Lou stopped Norma from killing Anne.  
  
And he learned that the phantom's plea was more than just a desire to uncover her killer so her soul could rest. Daria's spirit had reached out to him possibly because of another connection. A photo that Anne had given him before she left Chicago to return to Muncie held the final piece of the puzzle. He bore a striking resemblance to Jimmy, Daria's love and Anne's grandfather. Jimmy had had been killed in the war.  
  
He wasn't sure if he believed in reincarnation, but his resemblance to the dead man spooked him. And those dreams of Daria were frighteningly familiar.  
  
Some things that happen for the first time seem to be happening again.  
  
Maybe that's what love is. A never-ending and wonderful feeling that transcends space and time, a beautiful emotion that always seems like it is happening for the first time.  
  
The End. 


End file.
